Open Water Audiobook By Caleb Azumah Nelson cover art

Open Water

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Open Water

By: Caleb Azumah Nelson
Narrated by: Caleb Azumah Nelson
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A stunning, shattering debut novel about two Black artists falling in and out of love.

Two young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists - he a photographer, she a dancer - trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence.

At once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity, Open Water asks what it means to be a person in a world that sees you only as a Black body, to be vulnerable when you are respected only for strength, to find safety in love, only to lose it. With gorgeous, soulful intensity, Caleb Azumah Nelson has written the most essential debut of recent years.

©2021 Caleb Azumah Nelson. Recorded by arrangement with Black Cat, an imprint of Grove Atlantic, Inc. (P)2021 Audible, Inc. African American Fiction Genre Fiction Urban Heartfelt

Interview: Inspired by Hip-Hop, ‘Open Water’ Introduces a Stunning New Voice on Vulnerability

Open Water
'It feels like there's music that runs through all of us...'
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  • Open Water
  • 'It feels like there's music that runs through all of us...'

Editor's Pick

To love amid trauma
I listened to Open Water over the past few days, with the twin tragedies of the Derek Chauvin trial and the killing of Daunte Wright serving as the contemporaneous backdrop, the world whispering into my ear—in between listening sessions—the undeniable truth at the heart of Caleb Azumah Nelson's beautiful debut. Nelson delivers a lot in a fairly short listen: a love story, a prayer, a travelogue of a particular buzzy London scene, several (admittedly nerdy) art think-pieces, but above all the fear, trauma, and lack of owned identity that comes with being a young Black man today.
Narrating himself (an impressive feat that most writers struggle to pull off with this kind of success), Nelson's warm delivery and London accent lend authenticity and an enhanced sense of setting, but more than that, it allows this incredibly personal story to approach the listener as a sort of confidence. I felt invited into his protagonist's personal experience, which, while not my own, is one that I am working to fully sit with and better understand.
In contrast, there is a part of this story that feels incredibly familiar and hit me with a punch of nostalgia: the early love that can blossom from the kind of intense friendship that seems to only emerge between two people just embarking on adulthood. But the open water this kind of love should afford is denied to his characters as well. Nelson seems to be explaining the unexplainable by pointing to the most universal thing and saying ''why must you take this too?'' —Emily C., Audible Editor

Beautiful Writing • Poetic Storytelling • Soothing Voice • Unique Perspective • Intimate Characterization
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Hard to follow story.
Pretty boring monotone narration.
Two stars for descriptions. Otherwise..a snooze fest.


I'm editing my review after persevering through the first 20 chapters. This story really picks up around it's 22nd chapter. It is really a heartfelt introspection into black immigration masculinity. A genre that doesn't come along everyday. While it may have taken too long to build up, one finally sees purpose in the backdrop the author develops so languarously. The 2nd person narration truly adds up when a man steps out of himself to look at himself.

Read on. It's definitely worthwhile, especially if race, masculinity, and mental health are of interest to you. I'm thoroughly impressed.

initially meh...but...

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Really good story about Black love ands somewhat unconventional way of Blackness. Voice is very monotone and calming.

Black Love

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But a beautiful one. Relatable, empathetic and emotionally intelligent. Great for bedtime listening. A book for and about artists constantly reflecting on contemporary Black artists in a way that I think skillfully dates the novel.

A slow burn

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the writing style is not for me. you get only one point of view. would love to see what the other characters are up to. overall I like the portrait of how racial Préjudice and racial profiling can affect people and relationships.

I am conflited

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This is a beautifully written book but with you and fatal flaw which is the author got distracted in the third part on a story that's less about black love and more about black pain. the two sides of the story don't jive properly, resulting in a disjointed whiplash and a dissatisfying ending.

Love Story Distracted

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It was so refreshing and therapeutic to hear such raw emotions about how it feels to be a black man in this world. Thank you for your vulnerability

Powerful

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The narrator read in monotone. It was hard to follow the story because the narrator did not put any emotion or inflection, into the reading. The story itself was just ok. I wish there was more character development.

Monotone

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Amazing performance of a beautiful book. The ending was slightly lacking. A bit of a cliffhanger.

Beautiful

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done very well. b The author takes his time and it's very poetic. I truly enjoyed

done very well. you will truly enjoy it

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I’ve never felt so passionately about a book to go to the extent of writing a review. But this book deserves the praises and all its flowers.

It’s like I never knew words, feelings, could be described as they were. And it was so beautiful.

It talked of a perspective others have tried to describe, yet this book makes it feel as if it were told for the first time.


I cannot wait for a few years, when I forget the details of this book, to be able to read/listen, and once again be reminded.

What a beautiful story

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